To the Catalan Grand Company must be attributed the introduction of the first body of Turks into Europe. It might have been expected that the traditions of Spaniards would have influenced them sufficiently to have refused Moslem aid, that Western Europe would have raised the cry of treason to Christendom when it learned that bands of Turks had been engaged to fight against a Christian though a schismatic emperor; but the filibusters who had been invited into the empire for the defence of Christendom thought only of plunder, and Western Europe was either indifferent or thought there was little to choose between schismatics and Moslems. The attempts to restore the Latin empire had failed, but the emperor and his people were in presence of a much more formidable enemy than the West had furnished. The Asiatic hordes whom the city had successfully resisted for a century and a half before its capture were now constantly encroaching on imperial territory. As these hordes were destined to be the destroyers of the Empire, I propose next briefly to notice their origin and history. CHAPTER III THE TURKS: THEIR ENTRY INTO ASIA MINOR: NOT AT FIRST EXCLUSIVELY MAHOMETAN: THEIR CHARACTERISTICS: OTHMAN FOUNDS A DYNASTY: PROGRESS OF MOSLEMS IN EUROPE AND ASIA MINOR: CAPTURE OF BROUSA IN 1326. [Sidenote: Genghis Khan moves westward.] The great central plains of Asia, stretching almost without an interruption from the Caspian Sea to China, have during all historical time produced hardy races of nomad warriors. On the three occasions in their history when they have found skilful leaders, their progress as conquerors has been epoch-marking. Twice their progress has been westward. Mounted warriors and hordes of foot soldiers made their way towards the Euxine, some going to the north and others to the south of that sea. The first of these waves of population thus moving westward was that led by Genghis Khan, a Mongol belonging to the smallest of the four great divisions of the Tartar[34] race. His followers were, however, mainly Turks, the most widely spread of these divisions.[35] He had established his rule before 1227, the year in which he died, from the Sea of Japan to the Dnieper. He and his immediate successors ravaged a greater extent of territory than any other conqueror. Like Alexander the Great, he and they advanced with regularly organised armies, with apparently no other object than conquest and plunder. Their victories facilitated the migration of his own subjects into the newly conquered territories and hastened the departure of large bodies of men, who fled before the terrible massacres which marked the progress of their ever victorious armies.